Everything and More
by sweetprincipale
Summary: (Sequel to Living Conditions, please read that first.) Being happy together in a modest, minimum wage life was was everything Buffy and Spike wanted. Being able to find real love again was more than they had hoped. Takes place between Living Conditions ch. 15 when Spike & Buffy reunite, and the epilogue that shows them living their simple happily ever after, several years later.
1. Chapter 1

**Everything and More**

**By Sweetprincipale**

_ Being happy together in a modest, minimum wage life was was everything they wanted. Being able to find real love again was more than they had hoped. A short sequel to _Living Conditions_. Takes place between chapter fifteen, when Spike and Buffy reunite, and the epilogue that shows them living their simple, happily ever after, several years later. _

_Author's note: The first part of the chapter is from _Living Conditions_, so please bear with me if you've already read it. It just helps bring us to the current moment. The rest is new material. _

_Dedicated to the readers and reviewers of _Living Conditions_. I hope you'll enjoy seeing how Spike and Buffy finished "falling in love", and became the happy couple in the epilogue. _

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine. **_

**Part I**

_Sunnydale, a week after graduation... _

Buffy laid four letters on the table, _Mom, Giles, Xan, Willow_. She picked up her two suitcases and a cardboard box full of cleaning supplies, cooking stuff, and a bunch of other things she wouldn't want to live without. She went outside to wait, standing on the porch with her hands and heart uncomfortably full.

She didn't have her boxes or bags in hand for long. With a roar and a billow of black leather, Spike emerged from the car, crossed the lawn at a run, then picked her up and hugged her.

She was laughing, smiling from ear to ear. "Hey! Put me down."

"No!" He kissed her smartly on the mouth. "Okay, now. Bloody hell, the apartments are still tiny, Buffy!" He looked at the paraphernalia she had arrived with.

"I know but this time I'm planning to stay awhile. Look. Pots, pans, and a-"

"An iron?"

"No, not the iron, the toaster."

"Where're we gonna put all this?"

"The kitchen seems logical." She said dryly.

"I mean the rest of the small department store you're carryin'."

"The clothes and books and stuff can go in the spare bedroom."

His grin engulfed them both, pulling her under his arm, each of them picking up a bag in their free hand.

"Oh. It's spare now?"

"Yeah. I was thinking we could drop the 'roommate' idea."

Spike's stomach crashed to his feet. "Pardon?"

"I think the trendy term they use today is 'living together'." She smirked.

Spike let out a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding. "C'mon. Place feels empty without you."

"Good thing I'm coming home then."

"Amen." They walked in companionable silence, basking in a moment of things finally feeling right. "You- uh- you are sure?" He paused at the car, box resting on the hood.

"I'm sure."

"Your family-"

"I left letters for the important people in my life. I told them I'd be in touch, I told them if they promised to let me live my life, I'd tell them where I am." She put her suitcase at the curb with a stiff shrug.

"I heard there was a new slayer?" He threw out carelessly.

"She'll be here soon. I wrote Giles. I said I'd help with apocalypses." Feelings of guilt surged- then seeped away. There had never been two slayers in history before her. And why? Because she died, and came back, calling a newbie, and still keeping the "expert" around. She did her job. Being a slayer after you died? Well, that was just "above and beyond", and she'd hit the ceiling multiple times. "I could come visit, come help, whatever, every week, once a month. Whatever. Anything else- well, it's not a far drive, right?

"Absolutely. 'Specially not in this." Spike patted the hood of his new ride.

"So what about you?" Buffy let him open the doors, standing back a few steps, loading the bags in as he moved. "Your- your reflection and your heart not beating- and-" she fell silent. "Sorry. Probably the wrong thing to say. I just thought you'd never be okay without her."

"I didn't think I would be either." They both climbed in the car, but it remained in park. They looked forward, not at one another. "Never thought you'd let him go."

"I didn't. He left me."

"Wanker."

"I guess."

"I'm sorry, Luv."

She swallowed down a lump that seemed to come to her throat whenever she realized that Angel was gone. He'd never really been exactly back. There was so much between them, so much they knew they couldn't ever do... it was like a wall went up between his life and hers, and not even love could tear it down. "It hurts."

"B'lieve me, I know."

She smiled at him. "Every other single person in the world would get a 'You have no idea'. But not you. You _do_ know."

"Special, aren't I?" He winked with an obnoxious grin.

"Wow. I did miss you. I don't even want to slap you for that." Buffy laughed in amazement.

His hand found hers, and she squeezed it. "I missed you, too."

The playful mood had faded completely, it ebbed and flowed as it often did. That's what made it safe. Comforting. Like the tides. Riding waves together, predictably unpredictable, ups and downs. "I know he left you. If he comes back?" He let the question hang. _I can't take being left by her. I can't let her go. Not again._

"He won't be coming back." She snorted dismissively, bitterly.

"But if he does?" _Answer me. Say it's not so one sided this time. I've been love's bitch my entire existence. I'd like to just be "love's" for once._

She shook her head for a few seconds before she could speak. "Y'know, I was looking for the better part of life. 'Cause I had the bad part. The waaaaaay bad part. And then it wasn't so bad, but it still wasn't great." She licked her lips, looking sidelong at him. "I don't think anything can be good, even if it's like the ideal life- if you don't have a person to love." _Who loves you back the same. _She winced inside. _What are you saying? You love him? You want him to love you?_

_ Yes. No. Maybe. Not in the same way as Angel. But there is something to love, and I love it. And maybe I could love more. Maybe one day soon, loving something about him would change to being in love with him._

* * *

Fate rolled its eyes. Blind. Both of them. Or just very slow to see. No matter. They were starting to realize the undeniable now.

* * *

Spike felt hope inflate his cold insides and make his blood race and heat him from the inside out, all over again. "You mean, even if it's the most boring, bog standard routine in the world, and there's never much, always just enough- it's like your dream come true if you have the right person to scrape along with?"

She pouted at him. "You just had to say it all perfect, didn't you?"

"Ooh, perfect. Well, that is me."

"So not."

"Good with understandin' you though." His hand moved from hers to her arm. "Jus' like you understand me."

She nodded, and scooted across the seat. Time was slowing down, just enough to let them think as they leaned towards one another.

_ Is this the one you want? This isn't just a kiss, this is changing your whole life, your whole world. This person is the deciding factor in your life. Everything will be different._

_ Everything will be better. _

Mouths met and sighs escaped.

She kept her head close to his, lips brushing as she explained. "Then I get it. You pick me over everything, if I pick you over everything, too?"

"Spot on. A happy ending." Spike kissed her again, quickly this time, heart singing along to the loudest punk rock his head could pipe in.

"That's what I want."

He put the car in gear. "I was hopin' you'd say so." They settled back in, small grins of excitement bursting to become beams. Spike chuckled and looked at her from the corner of his eye. "I already told Ed I was bringin' you back with me."

She gaped at him in mock indignation. "Cocky, aren't you?"

"Only when I know I'm gonna get what I want."

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Oh God. Not this again." She was laughing.

"You know you love it." His eyes twinkled at her.

"I could fall in love with it." She confessed, a little smile and shrug covering a multitude of emotions and uncertainties.

"I'm counting on it." He said with a relaxed loll, arm draping lazily around her shoulders.

"Cocky again."

"Yet sincere."

"Is it possible to be driver sick instead of car sick?"

"Buffy..."

"Spike..."

"You drive me mad."

"Awww, you missed me too!"

He leaned over and kissed her cheek. She nuzzled up close, laying a hand on his chest, and nodding.

"Honestly, Luv, I might joke, but I'm dead serious about this."

"I know that. Why else would I want to spend the rest of my life with you?"

For once, he was more than happy to let her have the last word.

* * *

_Three weeks later..._

"Do not say one word to me." Buffy greeted him at four in the morning as he crawled into bed beside her in the gray pre-dawn light.

"What now?" The startled vampire demanded.

"That's two."

"Buffy!"

"So I know I worked the closing shift and I didn't get to see you before you left, but when I come home and I want to reheat my pitiful plate of leftovers-"

"Oh." Spike looked uncomfortable.

"-only to walk into the kitchen and find that there's a scene from _The Exorcist _in my microwave." Buffy rolled over and faced him, glaring.

"Well, this isn't like the micro we had in the other apartment. This one actually _works_ like it's s'posed to." Spike reached for her over the blankets, hand landing lightly on her sheet covered torso. "Still gettin' used to it. If I don't watch it every second-"

"The blood boils up and over, I know. I get that." She considered pushing his hand off because she was still pretty pissed. But she didn't. Because of all the things they did together- and the one thing they'd never said. "What I don't get is why you left the mess for _me_?"

"I didn't know you'd use it." Spike protested. Buffy snorted at him and he rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course you'd use it. Not like you're a gourmet cook."

"Spike! Not helping yourself." Buffy barked into the pillow.

"I was in a rush, okay? Last night on the prowl, heard somethin' I had to go check out, had to get there before it was too late." Spike scooted his hips over to her, closer. She didn't seem moved by the explanation. "Somethin' you'd like actually."

She resisted the urge to move closer. Nothing about him mugging people did she like, except that it paid half the rent and he wasn't hurting anyone anymore, aside from scaring the crap out of them. She finally gave in with a semi-interested "Hm?" and rolled to face him.

"Under the table gamblin' ring. Poker games with a low buy-in, hopin' for easy marks."

Buffy just stared for a moment. "So... you called the vice squad?"

"No! I bought into a few hands. Lost a little bit so they'd think I was safe to keep in, then won a few hundred by the end of the night. No one hurt." _Something I don't really give a damn about- but you do. An' I'd do almost anything for you, 'cause I- well. She oughta know. Even though I never say it. Never have said it._

Buffy blinked. "Did you just make semi-honest money?"

"Honest but illegal, if there's such a thing. Didn't have to cheat." He shrugged carelessly.

"You mean you've upgraded from mugger to gambler?"

"An' you're still stuck bein' a waitress." Spike teased.

"Shut up." She shoved his white shoulder hard.

"Is that anyway to talk to the man who might've earned enough to let us get basic cable?"

"Ooooh." Buffy fluttered her lashes. "Big spender."

"Ah, Baby. You can have it all." He lied back lazily and she rolled on top of him, looking down. Smiling. "Happy?" He tangled his hand gently in her hair.

"Why else would I be here?" She kissed him.

* * *

_Four weeks later..._

"It's here, just like the weatherman said! Gonna blow the awning clear off!" Kate looked nervously outside the diner's windows, the storm cracking open the clouds with jagged lightening and sheets of rain so thick they looked like gray walls rippling across the streets.

"We're gonna lose power." Pedro turned the heat up under the hamburgers, anxiously flipping them, trying to get them to finish before the storm took out the electricity.

"Dammit. Well, can't argue with mother nature." Kate began to balance the register drawer. "We'll close early if we have to. Not gonna sit here in the dark, paying everyone to sit on their backsides, not making any money while we're doing it. Anne, get these checks out to your tables."

"Right on it." Buffy still didn't let a lot of people get close, but she'd occasionally have a conversation, smile sometimes, even make a joke once in awhile. She would always be Anne to everyone in her new life. Buffy was a name for old friends, almost a separate person, and the Slayer- well, that was for emergencies.

The power suddenly went out with a fizzle and zap. In the kitchen, there was clatter and a curse.

"Cash only, folks." Kate called to the few people there for a late lunch.

Buffy scooped up her tips and wished she owned an umbrella. She and Spike were much better off now than when they'd been thrown together the first time, two survivors making it on instinct and stubbornness. This new life wasn't as hard, but they'd only been living it for a month, not enough time to think about everything they needed to buy. They had the basics and a little bit beyond. Mostly, they had each other.

"Hey, Anne- you need a ride?" Pedro called.

Maybe someday she'd accept one from him, maybe someday they'd be friends. But not now. Not when she was still fiercely protective of the happiness she'd clawed her way into. "I'm fine. I'll walk home."

"You can't walk in this! You're a featherweight, hon. You'll blow clean away." Kate said firmly.

"I'm fine, really. I- uh- I love walking in the rain."

"But this might be a _hurricane_." Another waitress pointed out in disbelief.

Buffy looked outside. She couldn't even see across the street. She hated being wet. Wet and shivery and if the power was out here, the elevator was probably out at home. Even though they weren't on the eleventh floor anymore, they were still plenty high up. Walking up all those stairs. Sliding in soaking sneakers. Looking like a drowned rat. Buffy almost gave in to convenience.

_But I'd rather walk alone, even in a blizzard. _She shuddered at the thought._ It'd be worth it to get home to him, and know no one knew too much about us. Not yet. _"I'm gonna go get my purse. " Buffy waved at the two elderly couples she'd been serving.

"That girl..." Kate shook her head at the petite figure walking to the back. "We're closing, folks. I'm so sorry. Finish up." There was a flurry of activity and muffled complaints about the darkness. Fortunately the glass front diner windows provided some light. Kate gave another speculative look through them.

"Looks like it's letting up a little. Maggie, ring those people up, thanks, hon." Kate tucked a pen behind her ear and fixed Anne with a maternal glare. "Anne, if you're gonna do this fool thing, you'd better go now. If you get struck by lightening or blown into a bus, don't you come crying to me about it!"

"I won't!" Buffy managed to crack a smile, and with unusual speed, she was out of her apron and into her sweater, out the door before anyone could even say goodbye.

She might as well have jumped head first into a pool. "Oh yeah. Real smart." Buffy shivered and began to run, blinking rain from her eyes. "Why couldn't this have happened near sunset?" She'd have had a ride waiting. But as it was, Spike would still be asleep, at two in the afternoon. "Should've just let someone give me a lift..."

She ran two blocks and began to wonder if her uniform was going to wash right off of her. The grumbling began."I should look for a job closer to home. I don't have to keep using an alias. Unless I want to." It was safer for now. Safer for both of them. _And I'd put up with just about anything for him._ The grumbling vanished. "I guess I want to." She'd been leaning against the wall of a drug store, and now she pushed herself on again, resolutely heading towards home. _A little rain never hurt anyone. And if a hellmouth didn't kill me- much, a hurricane won't stand a chance. _

Buffy almost didn't see it. The wind and the rain was creating a fog-like effect for one thing. The streets were dead with the traffic lights down and cars pulled off to the side of the road for another.

All except for one car, that seemed to come out of nowhere, right at her.

* * *

Buffy let out a startled screech as tires cascaded water over her, and headlights suddenly blinded her. "Hey! Rude much?" Buffy spat and pushed her already terminally soaked hair back out of her eyes for the hundredth time.

A door swung open, right at her side, making her yelp. "GET IN!"

"Spike!"

"Get in here, woman, it's like the bloody Biblical flood! Any minute now the animals'll be pairin' off." Spike howled against the torrential rain.

Buffy sloshed her way into the car, panting and laughing breathlessly. "How'd you know I needed a ride?"

"Because I'm smart." Spike grunted and looked at her balefully.

"You're up. I didn't think you'd be awake." She shivered and reached for the heating control on the dash.

"I just woke up, put the blood in to heat and bang go the lights. Figured if we were in a blackout, you lot were too, an' the diner can't stay open without somethin' to cook with and a way for people to see what they're eatin'. Although at that place they might be better off if they-"

"You're starting to wash away the happy to see you feelings." Buffy stopped his snarking.

He ignored her, though he switched tracks. " An' it's the middle of the ruddy day, an' I knew the bus didn't make a stop this early."

"How'd you even get here in this rain? I'm surprised you can even see with the windshield as black as it is and-" Buffy got another glare and he muttered something angrily under his breath. She noticed for the first time, now that rain wasn't streaming down her face- that he was soaking wet too.

He rolled the window down and shoved his head out of it. "You're payin' for the upholstery to get wet vacced."

* * *

They slid and slushed up the dark steps, led by his glowing eyes. "You didn't have to come get me." Buffy said as they neared their door.

"Yeah, I did." He snapped.

"I could've walked!" _Before we were together, I took care of myself. Dragged myself through worse. Or at least when I felt worse. _

_ So no. I couldn't have. Because this life is what we chose. Why it's better. We promised we'd make it better, together, even if there was never much to make better to begin with. _"Thanks."

"Welcome." His scowl vanished. "C'mon, you're worse off than I am."

"I'm dripping all over the carpet!" Buffy shook off her sneakers and narrowly missed Spike's coat flying through the air past her head.

"So take your clothes off an' hang 'em in the bath." Spike headed down to the bathroom himself, and came back with two towels. He began vigorously drying his hair into a mass of platinum fluff.

He tossed a towel at her and ignored her padding down to the dark bathroom as he lifted the blinds and got some gray, cloudy light into the pitch black apartment. "I dunno what you're gonna do about dinner. There's ice cream in the freezer, too. How long before that melts?" He took off his black tee shirt, also soaked through.

"I don't know. Don't we have candles?"

"No! When would we have thought to buy candles?" He called, and then mumbled, "Why would we need 'em when I can see in the dark?"

"We should! And flashlights. And an umbrella! Definitely an umbrella."

"I'll put it on the list. For now we have my lighter and that's it."

She was behind him, hand on his bare back. "I don't think we need any light, really."

Thunder slammed and the walls shook. "We don't need a lot of things." Spike turned to face her. Watched the towel drop away.

"On rainy days we usually watched movies. Remember?"

"Once we stopped avoidin' each other." He kissed her and unlooped his belt.

"Yeah. After that." She swayed up against him. "But... no power, no movies, so..."

"Let's make our own entertainment." He caught on easily, picking her up with a sly smile. "Right here." He pressed her smooth back to the glass.

"Not right here!" She squealed.

"We're not exactly on ground level, Luv."

"But the apartments across the way-"

"Can't see more than a foot in front of their faces in this weather." He buried his head between her breasts and kissed her chilled, satiny skin.

"You are so bad." She moaned, letting her head loll back.

"You know you love it."

So close. Buffy swallowed and pushed her hips off the window sill, down onto him, joining them. With a reverberating purr, he thrust up and her shoulder blades rattled the panes, competing with the gales outside. "Spike..."

"You know you love it." He whispered again, holding her eyes, tight, firm hips swiveling with her, milking her pink tunnel.

Buffy nodded, unspeaking, her hands locking behind his neck. She used the window sill and his hands for leverage, and worked herself up and down on him, slicker by the second.

Crummy jobs. Cheap apartments. No power. Storms. Her eyes closed and her forehead fell, touching his. "I do. I do love this."

"Buffy..."

"_Everything_ about this." She whispered pointedly.

* * *

_Five weeks later..._

"Did you have another card game?" Buffy threw open the window and coughed exaggeratedly. "I can only take the stench of one kind of cigarettes at a time, Spike."

"You can't play poker with wannabe mobsters unless you smoke cheap cigars and drink overpriced whiskey." He dropped a thick wallet on the table. "Worth it."

"Tell that to the vat of air freshener I am about to douse you with." She grumbled. "Seriously. I'm going to start sewing those little pine fresh cardboard trees to your clothes."

"If you could sew." He scoffed, but took the coat off and hung it by the open window.

"I can sew! Giles taught me a suture stitch. He said Slayers don't usually need them, but-" She stopped speaking, a sudden spasm passing across her face. She shook it off. "You're right. I don't know how."

He cursed himself, as if he'd somehow brought this on her. Maybe he had. Letting her know they had the option of starting their strange little life together again. _She wouldn't have left if I hadn't offered her the chance. _"You- uh- you heard from him?"

"Yes. I did. He's still in the totally bewildered phase. But he's taking it better than Mom. I'm doing the weekly phone call thing. I still haven't given either of them an address. I'm waiting until Mom stops yelling 'Don't hang up!' every time I call. Like I'd hang up._ I'm_ the one who called." She flopped moodily into a chair. It creaked. "Do all the pre-furnished places have chairs that belong in haunted houses?"

"Prolly. Least this one's just old, Buffy. We didn't beat it to death."

"Unlike the last one." She acknowledged with a tiny grin.

He chuckled and came over to rub her shoulders. "We can move to one of the unfurnished ones. Buy our own pretties."

"You have to fleece a lot more people before we can afford our own furniture." Buffy sighed and arched her spine into his hands. "Have I told you lately- or ever- that you are amazingly talented with your hands?"

"Jus' my hands?" He breathed against her spine, making each sound ripple across her skin.

"All of you." She conceded easily.

"That's my girl."

"Mhm. At least I'm yours." Buffy let her head rest against his arm and absently kissed his wrist. _He wants me just like I am, whoever I want to be. _

He swallowed. He'd lived through her being at her very lowest. He'd learned to hate anything that resembled that horrible depression, listlessness- lifelessness. "That's right. You absolutely are my girl, and I take my girl out on the town sometimes." He said with sudden determination.

"Say what?" Buffy was up, out of the chair, pulled by a suddenly purposeful and energetic partner.

"Go put on your party dress!"

"I don't have a party dress, and I don't feel like going out for wings tonight!"

"Put on your least battered up pair of pants then!" He ordered and shoved her into the bedroom. "An' who said anything about wings?"

"Spike, are you sure you only smoked cigars?" Buffy asked dubiously.

"I'm gonna take you out, properly out, on a _date_, Buffy Summers. Now shut up and get ready."

* * *

"Two, please." Spike handed the clerk at the ticket counter a ten.

"That's barely one, buddy."

"Bloody hell, twenty dollars to see two hours worth of snogging and attempts at comedy? Does that include the popcorn?" Spike asked irately, digging back into his wallet.

"He doesn't get out much." Buffy took his hand, wrapped around a wad of bills, and forced it out to the clerk with an apologetic smile. "Thank the nice man, _honey_, and keep walking." She jabbed a fist in his back and pushed him along, taking the tickets with her.

"I do so get out!" Spike called over his shoulder. "I-"

"Shhhh!"

"This is your fault, y'know. Vamps don't pay to go to the soddin' movies. Not often, anyway."

"But you thought a movie ticket was five bucks? When was the last time you paid to get into the movies?" Buffy hissed.

He didn't answer. "Spike?"

"It was _Star Wars_, okay?"

_Just full of surprises._ Buffy couldn't even make a coherent reply. "You- why would you- I mean- _Star Wars_?"

He sighed fondly. "Darth Vader. Gotta love a villain who works the black cape." He winked and tucked his duster around her, pulling her under his arm.

"You're so strange." She rolled her eyes. "Oh, extra butter flavor." Buffy tugged his arm and stopped them in front of the concession counter.

"Bloody hell." He grumbled, but it was part of the facade. Money didn't mean much compared to her. As long as they had enough to keep their home going... "They make those slushy- slurpy ice sodas you like. Wanna couple?"

"You want one, too?" Buffy asked in surprise.

"No! Those things'll rot my teeth. Can you imagine a vamp with cavities?" He mumbled from the corner of his mouth. She laughed against shoulder, leaning against him.

"Cherry flavor. Just one." She smiled up at him.

"Got it. And the extra large popcorn. Extra butter."

"You spoil me. I love it." Buffy beamed girlishly at him as she took her drink with eager fingers.

"You do alright yourself." Every night and every morning beside him, her body, her affection, her friendship, her companionship, her- He held her a little tighter. "Good. That's what I want to hear."

"You- you do?" Buffy almost lost her grip on the slippery cup. _He wants to hear me say that I love it. That I..._

"Yeah. That I spoil you. That you like it. That you're happy."

Her heartbeat calmed back down. "Very happy."

* * *

"I don't think I've ever eaten in a restaurant where they give you finger bowls."

"Imagine my disappointment when it wasn't full of fingers." He gave a snide smirk.

"Spike!"

"I gotta make gory jokes, Luv. Or I gotta get some blood sport goin' on."

"Oh. In that case, yeah. No severed fingers. Bummer."

"You did fine at the fancy ass place. You don't need airs and graces. You're naturally graceful. Like a pretty little panther." He kissed her head.

She blushed slightly. "Well, if we ever go there again- we're going in dress code."

"Ah, but threatening the maitre'd so he'd let us in anyway was more fun."

"You're impossible."

"Maybe. But we're entirely possible." He lazily linked his fingers with hers as they strolled in the moonlight, hand drifting down over her shoulder as her arm bent up over her chest to reach his.

"We are, aren't we?" Something fluttered inside her chest.

"Figure we must be. Here we are. In spite of it all. You did say- when I came to pick you up-" he cleared his throat and looked at the say with sudden pretended fascination, "that you were gonna spend the rest of your life with me."

The fluttering invaded her throat. "I meant it."

"So you must-" He had been so brave and brash once. Before his heart had been torn out. _She must love me. But if I ask her to say it, and she doesn't feel it, or doesn't mean it-_ He made a safer substitution. "You must really want this."

The rapid pulsing died. _I know we're capable of loving each other. I know we're capable of saying it. But it's so perfect like this. A crazy kind of perfect no one else would ever call perfect. As hard and dull and unexciting as this life is, it's the only one I want. And I don't need to ask for more. _

_ Maybe I'm scared to love someone again. _

_ But I'm never afraid of Spike. _

"I want it more than anything." _Even more than knowing for sure what we have, than hearing the words. Just as long as it stays the same._

* * *

They walked home, not in silence, making small talk. What bills they needed to pay this week, what movies they ought to rent for the weekend, gossip from their few friends and neighbors. Comfortable in their shared life.

Don't be greedy, Spike scolded himself as words that he longed to say and words that he was scared to say burnt a hole in his throat. He watched her slip out of her clothes, and into their bed, warm, waiting for him.

He came to her, like he did every night, sometimes technically morning. Made love in a tangle of pleasure and laughter. Watched her fall asleep sprawled across his chest.

_This has gotta be love. She's a smart girl, I'm sure she knows it. I'm pretty sure she'd say it, too. If we hadn't had such a buggered up time with the last "loves of our lives". We were destroyed by them leavin' us, and now we're livin' again, we came back from that. Dragged each other back- kickin' an' screamin'. _He laughed quietly and she smiled at the sound.

He stroked her hair and she kissed his collarbone in her sleep, curling closer. Spike tightened his grip.

_ Why risk what feels so bloody good and was so damned difficult to get - just to hear three words more?_

* * *

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Everything and More**

**By Sweetprincipale**

_ Being happy together in a modest, minimum wage life was was everything they wanted. Being able to find real love again was more than they had hoped. A short sequel to _Living Conditions_. Takes place between chapter fifteen, when Spike and Buffy reunite, and the epilogue that shows them living their simple, happily ever after, several years later. _

_Dedicated to ginar369, mike13z50,spapad,PeaceHeather, Jewel74, Skeezixx, Cavemenftw, omslagspapper, jackiemack916, alexiarrose, burgundyburning, and arlenedemalk. _

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine. **_

**Part II**

_Six weeks later..._

"I'm going to die." Buffy tore out of her uniform before the door was even shut behind her.

Spike looked up from the paper, an ice cold can of beer in his hand. "Do tell."

"Not now." Buffy marched over to the fridge in her bra and panties and flung open the door. "Ahhhh."

"I'm gonna guess it has somethin' to do with the heat wave?"

"Hottest August in thirty five years. The day the central air breaks." Buffy grabbed a handful of ice and ran it over her neck. "The day the bus had a flat. The day Pedro had the ovens on all day making meatloaf, lasagna, roasting chickens... It's a diner! Order sandwiches and milkshakes, people!" Buffy yelled pointlessly out the open window.

"Here." He offered her the drink, but all she did was run the can across her chest. Which made him start to feel a bit hot, just watching. "I meant drink it." He prompted in a slightly constricted voice.

"I hate beer and you know it." Buffy pressed the can to her forehead. "Why aren't you sweating? How are you surviving in jeans?" She demanded angrily.

"Perks of bein' undead. No body temp to speak of. I can feel it, but it doesn't bother me. And you know it takes something much more taxin' to make _me_ sweat."

"Stupid lucky vampire." Buffy groaned and bundled her hair out of its ponytail and up into a bun. "I'm gonna go take a long, cold shower."

"You do that." Spike grinned. "Mind if I join you?"

"No, 'cause then it'll turn into a long, hot shower." She teased him and kissed him swiftly. "But if you get me cooled down enough before bed..."

"Hey. Let's chase down the ice cream truck after this." Spike said in a suddenly much louder voice. Buffy laughed and then nodded.

"Very, very good idea."

* * *

They had to walk the long way to the park- which was already far from the apartments.

"I am _dying_." Buffy fanned herself. She had changed into shirt cutoff shorts and a skinny, strappy tank top. In spite of that, and her love of the California weather, she felt like she was dissolving.

"You keep sayin' it, but we know it's not gonna happen." He teased. She wasn't amused. He sighed and pointed out, "We're walkin' in the shade. Nothin' else we can do." The sun was setting now, letting him stroll outside- if he kept in the shadows. "'Specially since _someone _wouldn't ride in the car."

"That makes me sound like a dog."

"Please don't tell me you want a bloody puppy!"

"No, I just want you to take the car to the garage to get the AC fixed! What kind of sadistic person functions in southern California without air conditioning?"

"The kind who doesn't much care about temperature." He said with a perverse smile, winding her up a bit.

"Well, if it's the car both of us use, it's sort of ours, and_ I _like it when all the parts work." Buffy said petulantly. Then bit her lip. _It's not "our" car. It's our apartment, 'cause we both pay for half of everything, and we live together. The car was his. Always just his. _

He watched her from the corner of his eye. "Problem is, Luv, when you go to your average mechanic's-"

"Money. Right. I- I would help pay for it. I mean, since you give me rides. I know it's your really you car." Buffy hastily amended her previous outburst.

"It's not the money. Gamblin' isn't exactly lucrative, 'cause you can't cheat all the time an' you can't win all the time, an' it's not an every night sort of deal, but-"

"But?"

He lowered his voice. "Registration and insurance. Gotta have somethin' fake but convincing lookin' made up before I take it to a shop. If we were in Sunnyhell, no problem. Demon-run shop a few blocks south of the warehouse district."

"But we don't hang out with the demony crowd in LA, I know." Buffy nodded. "Well. It's gonna get colder soon. No big deal."

She fanned, and he stuck his hands in his pockets and swaggered casually beside her. In the distance they heard the tinkling tinny music of the ice cream truck.

"Oh thank God." Buffy sped up slightly. "My treat, come on." She urged him.

"Two scoops. Sprinkles." He informed her.

* * *

"Thought parks were s'posed to have ponds. With geese." Spike tossed the last of his cone into the grass.

Buffy continued working on her strawberry dipped, holding the cone in one hand, and his hand in the other. "Not in the bad part of LA, Spike. Ducks and geese probably all moved into Beverly Hills years ago."

"Could be. Speakin' of movin' and bad parts of town..."

"Huh?" Buffy almost dropped her ice cream. "We can't afford to-"

"Not us. I was thinkin', we could go see your mum. Well, _you_ see her. I'll get our car fixed, you - you pop home."

She noted the use of the word "our", and it melted the part of her heart not doing a panicked palpitation. "I don't think I'm ready to go back there yet. And it's not home." She added with a significant look.

Heat evaporated and silly arguments vanished.

"Sweet, aren't you?" Spike muttered and led her to a seat on a graffiti covered bench.

"Sometimes." She stretched her tanned legs out and wiggled her toes in her flip-flops. "I never told them what happened. In my letters, I talked about me, not about _us_. I never- I did't tell them."

"You don't have to."

"I don't want to."

"Problem solved."

"I don't want to go there yet. I'm afraid my mom might seriously try to have me committed."

"You're eighteen and you've got slayer speed and strength-"

"That's for fighting bad guys, not my mother!" Buffy savagely bit the last piece of her cone.

"I know." _Normal girl. Abnormal vampire. The only way this works long term, and that's fine, 'cause that's mostly the way we want it._ "I'd spring you." Spike stared at the rising moon through the leaves of the scraggly tree shading them. "I'd have to. Not gonna make rent on m'own."

She laughed and sighed. "I'll think about it."

They sat without speaking, absorbing the roar of traffic and the blaring music of the youth center down the block, the splash of kids playing in a burst fire hydrant before their mothers screamed at them to get inside before dark.

"I'm not used to you being this quiet." Buffy finally elbowed him.

"You said you were thinkin'. I know that takes up all your brain cells, didn't think you'd understand anything I said." Spike elbowed her in return. "Wanna head home?"

"To sweat to death?" Buffy vetoed that. "I'm about ready to go jump in after those kids." Her chin nodded at the mob of children splashing in ankle high water.

"Dare you." Spike chuckled maliciously.

She almost rose to the bait. "Let's just take the long way home. It's dark enough for you, and it's cooler out here than it is inside."

He loved that idea. Long moonlit walk in a teeming city- he'd spent a century of nights like that. Only one big difference. He'd be taking home a human, but not for dinner. "C'mon. Maybe we'll get a burger on the way."

"It's too hot for red meat. Why aren't there smoothie trucks?"

"Prolly are. In Beverly Hills. With all the geese." He strung her hand along in his and they walked down the block, the odd couple- the petite tanned valley girl and Mr. Goth. "My treat this time. I'll find you a popsicle or somethin'. Although if you want somethin' long, cold, and creamy, I happen to have what you're lookin' for right -"

"It's too hot for that, too!" Buffy blushed.

"Not if we do it on the kitchen floor with the freezer open." He suggested.

She faltered in her stride. "That does sound pretty good." Their pace quickened.

Two figures took the long way home, although they walked briskly in the darkness.

_Suits us. All the time in the world now- and still in a rush to be alone together. It'd be the perfect time to tell her. Look at that sliver of a moon, with the stars wreathin' it. Slide it in casually. "We should stop and pick up milk." "Yeah, we should." "Beautiful night. Happy to spend it with the woman I love." That'd do it._

He took in the sight of her, pacing along beside him, frowning thoughtfully. _Or undo it. Undo it all. _"Beautiful night." Spike told her, and left it at that.

* * *

The heat wave dragged on, and the long walk starting at sunset got to be a habit. The ice cream truck, the park bench, petty bickering and plenty of flirting, all regular features, with the soundtrack of children playing and thumping bass from the passing radios and the youth center surrounding them.

Buffy thought she was in heaven. One with a hellish temperature, but otherwise, perfect. "This is what I always wanted, you know?" She said one night, licking her fingertips free of chocolate.

"Fudge pops? Bugger, you did have it rough."

"No! This." She waved her free arm vaguely around them. "Normal. Normal boyfriend. Get up in the morning, go do your job, come home at night, talk about how the day went, and then- normal stuff. Dinner, movies, holding hands and pigging out." She sighed. "This is what I wanted." _To have someone I love, and it's simple_. _I love you. I wondered if I could ever love him, fall in love with him, not just being with him, but really, actually love _Spike_. And I do. _"I wanted you."

"Want you, too, Luv." He paused and turned to her, hand cupping her sweet honeyed cheek, kissing her lips with something soft and primal all at once. "Buffy, I-"

He paused a little too long, something uncertain in his eyes, and she was afraid she knew what it was. The opposite of everything she was feeling. "What did_ you _want?" Buffy hastily interjected.

That was an interesting question. To be loved, to be in love. To have power, feel powerful. _What's more powerful than that feeling of being in love, that all over rush- and at the same time, knowing everything'll be okay as long as you're together at the end of the night? _

An interesting question, but a simple answer. "You. I wanted you."

"You didn't even know me back then."

"Doesn't matter. You didn't always know me, either. Still gonna know what you want."

"Well... yeah, maybe." She conceded. "But what if you're scared to mess it up, 'cause you finally have everything just perfect-"

"What, this?" He gestured to the concrete near-slum that surrounded them. She was in the center of this human ant farm. Suddenly- paradise.

"Duh, _this_." Like he didn't freely admit that it was. His subtle, near bashful nod told her she was right. "So you finally have everything just perfect, and you get scared to - change anything, try something different, do what you used to do..." She didn't finish the thought, because it had no end for her. _When it feels this good, you're in love, and you say it. That's what I did before. Spike did, too. So it didn't work out with them, this is different. This is so easy, we already did the hard part. We couldn't mess it up. _

_ Could we?_

"Oh." He kicked at some broken sidewalk. _What's she afraid of? Me, herself? What's left to change? We've left everything but each other behind._

_Maybe that's it. Left too much behind. She had so much more than I did._

"C'mere, Baby. Nothin' to be scared of." He pulled her close, despite the oppressive, sweltering night, his head on top of hers.

"I believe you."

_I keep thinking times will never change_

_Keep on thinking things will always be the same_

_But when we leave this year we won't be coming back_

Spike straightened up as he caught one particular strand of lyrics blaring from the cinderblock building they were passing. "You miss your mum?"

"Of course!" His question was out of nowhere, her answer purely reactive honesty.

"Jus' because everything we've got is workin' doesn't mean we can't throw in some of the old stuff. Doesn't have to change anything. How about we go visit Sunnyhell next time you've got the day off? I'll get the car fixed, you visit your mates an' your mum. See how the new little slayer is gettin' on."

Guilt prickled her. "It _has_ been almost two months."

"So. We'll go back."

They swallowed. _We'll never go "back"._

* * *

_Eight weeks later..._

"Back so soon? The car's not even sorted." Spike looked up from the greasy magazine he was flipping through as Buffy appeared in the garage's waiting area.

"I'll wait with you." Buffy said shortly and snatched up a magazine. She hastily dropped it. "They make demon Sports Illustrated?"

"Car magazines! Always have some kind of model posin' on the hood. Just different types of models." He gently pushed the local paper into her hands. "Had a look through. Seems town is peaceful."

"Good."

"Hurry it up, Larry?" Spike shouted into the back.

"Almost done the flush, give it five!" Someone shouted a reply.

"No young people in the obituaries. Always a good sign." Buffy sighed and put the paper down, rubbing her temples.

"Slayer, what-"

"Don't!" She hissed with sudden fury.

"Alright, alright, easy! Old habits."

"I _hate_ old habits. I hate this place, and I wasn't ready to come back yet." She rose, and Spike yanked her back down.

"Don't take it out on me! No one forced you."

No, he hadn't. Doubts had. _I'm sure now. I was sure before. Always listen to your gut, even if everything else outside of you is screaming how wrong it is. My "right" doesn't have to match anyone else's. _"I want to go home. And I don't want to talk about today. Except to say that phone calls are all I can handle for now." _If you love me, you'll get it. Please, please get this..._

He nodded slowly.

"Ready, Spike." A humanoid figure with dark red eyes and a hint of horns showing from under his oil stained hat came out and tossed the vampire his keys. "She's out front."

"Ta', mate." Spike left some bills onto the counter. He turned and saw she was already out the door. He followed.

* * *

Buffy waited. Waited for him to ask. Saw him lick his pale lips once before placing an unlit smoke between them.

"I jus' remembered-"

"What?" Her voice challenged him.

"Two things actually." He said calmly, as if she hadn't spoken. "Ed's away overnight next week, goin' to his lodge retreat. We're dog sitting Milton."

"We're _what_?"

"You know Kim can't do it, she has cats, and you know what Milton's like around cats."

"I mean- we- wow. Okay, we're dog sitting." _Next we'll trade in the black cartel freebie car for a station wagon with an Honor Student bumper sticker._

"Yeah, Friday night into Saturday. The other thing was-" he fished around in his pocket, "got a coupon for Blockbuster. What do you want to rent tonight? We get two for one and a free theater sized box of Junior Mints."

Her eyes gave him silent thank yous, which he pretended not to see. "Well, I know how much you like Disney..."

"Don't even, Buffy."

"C'mon! How about a classic? _Snow White_? _Cinderella_?"

"So help me, I will make you sit through _Terminator _again..."

"Like you could 'make me' do anything." She scoffed.

"Don't you tempt me, Sweetheart. Throw on a nice corny horror movie if you like. Maybe even _Dracula_." He taunted.

"I take it back. You make me crazy."

"As in crazy about me?"

The bad day vanished. "Head over heels." She admitted, and sat back in her seat with a sigh.

* * *

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Everything and More**

**By Sweetprincipale**

_ Being happy together in a modest, minimum wage life was was everything they wanted. Being able to find real love again was more than they had hoped. A short sequel to _Living Conditions_. Takes place between chapter fifteen, when Spike and Buffy reunite, and the epilogue that shows them living their simple, happily ever after, several years later. _

_Author's Note: You didn't really expect the road to be completely smooth, did you? _

_Dedicated to ginar369, mike13z50,spapad,PeaceHeather, Jewel74, Skeezixx, Cavemenftw, omslagspapper, jackiemack916, alexiarrose, Rosalea12, burgundyburning, ValidescopeWest, and arlenedemalk. _

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine. **_

**Part III**

_Nine weeks later..._

"Spike? You didn't die again, did you?" Buffy entered the apartment with a wrinkled nose.

"Shhhh!" Spike waved her to silence, leaning forward in his chair.

"It stinks in here!" She looked around, and blanched. The pile of laundry (including her diner-iffic uniforms) he was going to have done by the time she got home, the trash he was going to take out, something that might once have been a burrito- all added their unique aromas to the apartment.

"Shh!" He said more violently, hand waving more viciously at her.

Buffy hurried over to his side, a knot forming in her stomach as she saw him riveted to the television. "Oh no. What's on the news? Is it slay-worthy? Is it-"

"What part of _shhh _do you not grasp?" Spike snarled and turned the volume up to the point where neighbors would soon be thumping on the walls.

Buffy looked past him, expecting to see burning buildings, landing aliens, floods and earthquakes- and instead saw two people arguing in a living room. "Spike, what-?"

He jabbed his finger forward and she followed his gesture to a small box.

"Cable! We have real cable now?" Buffy's anger melted.

A singing bag of potato chips replaced the arguing couple, and Spike regained use of his conversation skills. "We have basic! We have three PBS stations and one is havin' an all day _EastEnders_ marathon!"

"And that is...?"

"Bloody Brilliant! Makes_ Passions _looks like dog turds."

"So no more soaps?"

"I didn't say that! Trish an' Kim would kill me. Oh bloody hell, I owe Kim a box of dryer sheets an' I forgot to do the laundry. I wonder they didn't come up here. I'll get up after this episode and run 'em down to her."

"If you turn into a couch vampire, I'm getting a new roommate." Buffy chuckled, and sat in his lap. "But seriously- stinks like dead people. Crispy ones."

"That's the burrito. I forgot to get it out of the oven, 'cause what's her name went into labor." He put his arms round her waist. "An' what's with all that 'roommate' rubbish? We're not _roommates_."

"Hmm. True. If you turn into a couch vampire- no more sex."

He smirked. "Really, Luv?" He pushed his hips forward, into her soft rear. His sensitive, slender fingers dragged down the front of her red checked skirt and then under it.

"Hey!"

"No more of this?" He laughed into her shoulder and pulled the crotch of her simple cotton panties to one side and gently traced her lips.

"Well..." She twisted her head back to kiss him.

"An' this?" The finger pushed inside. Instantly wet, soft, and grasping. "Someone missed me. Sure you want to cut me off, Baby?"

"No more for a- a day." She struggled not to feel anything, even as her pelvis lifted and sank in a subtle shift, pleasuring herself on him.

"A whole day? Horrors." He curled his fingers around the crotch of the panties and began pulling them down.

"Spike, I haven't even showered yet."

"So?"

"I'm sweaty."

"Do I look like I care?" He dropped her to the carpet, falling over her.

"The house is a mess." She was protesting while undoing the belt at her waist, watching him mirror her images on his own body.

"After this- we'll do some fluff an' fold, I'll take out the rubbish, and then-"

"Then?" Her pupils dilated in happy lust, watching him maneuver between her legs, preparing to join them together.

"Then I'm gonna try an' catch you up on the series. It's been runnin' since 1985, and the marathon's in the early nineties already."

Buffy groaned and laid her head back on the floor and shook it. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"All couples have to share a hobby or two." He kissed her and leaned their foreheads together.

_We're a couple. We're really a couple. I love that. I love you. _

"I-"

He sank into her and their ravaged moans blocked her words. He thought he could read them in her eyes though.

He tried to drive her to say it, to cry it out in her passion. Ground her hips into the floor, ravished her, kept encouraging "Yeah, Luv? Yeah, Buffy?"

She would just moan and try to outdo him, milking him, driving him back, until they'd reversed, until he was flat on his back under her, making love, being ridden unmercifully (not that he minded), in a pile of black denim and red and white cotton.

It's better she doesn't say it now, he thought in hazy wave of bliss. _Right now, if she asked if I'd like to go work on my tan on a sunny beach, I'd say yes. I'd say anything in the world if she just kept doin' that._ "You're the best, Baby." He whispered and roughly dragged her down to seal her lips. He didn't want to hear her say she loved him in the middle of this wild ride, just in case it was the pleasure she was loving. _Loves this life, and bloody fond of me. That oughta be enough. _

"Oh my God, Spike, oh. My. God." She collapsed off of him and rolled on her side. "Still got it."

"Never gonna lose it."

They locked hands, tired and rug burned. "Better than our first time." Buffy admitted ruefully.

"Well, yeah. This carpet's a bit softer." He winked and she slugged him weakly, too spent to do real damage. "Every time is better than the last time. 'Cause we - we've been together longer. We're better together." _We fall in love a little bit more with everything we do._

"Yeah. More time together is of the good." She rested her head on his blue lined shoulder. "Fluffing and folding?"

"Trash and dryer sheets."

"Man, we're rocking the LA lifestyle."

He toppled her back to the floor as she began to push herself up. "I could rock you a bit more if you want. You know...just more of that togetherness thing."

* * *

_Ten weeks later..._

"Where are you going?" Buffy woke up as the bed beside her shifted. "Spike? Is it morning?"

"Shh. It's still dark out. Gotta do a little run. Be home before you leave." Spike leaned back down and kissed the bridge of her nose, then her puzzled mouth.

"But- you had a game last night." She clutched the sheet around her naked body and watched him as he slid into his jeans and tucked in his tight black tee.

"I'm just gonna go make up the difference. Was a bunch of low rollers at the game. Amateurs. No one'll get hurt." Spike didn't know why, but he felt a strange irksome sensation at her tone. "Just go back to sleep."

"No one'll get hurt? Exactly how are you 'making up the difference'? Robbing people?" Buffy in turn felt a little flutter of annoyance. I _didn't ask him to stop that. He said he did it for me, and I was happy about it. Why say something if you can't follow through?_

Spike growled inside at her shrewish tone._ Of course not. 'Cause that wouldn't help us any. Was gonna punch an ATM._

_ But what the hell does she expect? I'm domesticated, not declawed! This was good enough for her before. "Spike plays the mild mannered punk fiend" was not in the deal. Splitting the rent. Never too bloody fussy about how we got it. Just pay your share. That was all we ever said._

_ There's so much we never said. _

_ We barely used to talk. Just notes on strips of paper. Sometimes that was easier. _

The longer he paused the more tense she got, and when he finally spoke, it didn't ease her stress.

"So what if I am? They'll all live to tell the tale! Not gonna pick on little old grannies, either. Find myself some muggers muggin' others if it'll bloody well shut you up." Spike muttered heatedly.

"Excuse me? Did you just tell me to shut up?" Buffy gaped and shook her head. _I'm having a dream. A weird, midnight munchies, "shouldn't have had that doughnut Ed gave me last week that I forgot about until tonight" bad dream. _

"I didn't but I'm thinkin' about it! Who brings in the most money, Buffy? Who paid for the bloody cable, and the new IDs that actually fooled the people at the phone company? Who got the bloody phone connected up?"

"Gee, Spike, I don't know. It all depends on who loses money at gambling, and who makes more honestly busting her ass from opening 'til closing if you're short!"

"That happened once! An' it happened the week we fixed the damn car! Who needed it fixed? Oh, that's right, _you_ did, Precious. 'Cause God forbid you sweat a bit. You're a fuckin' Slayer, you were meant to bathe in blood an' guts!"

Her hand connected across his face with a stinging slap, but her eyes were the ones that overflowed. "I didn't want to go there anyway." Buffy whispered in a shaking, voice. "A-and I gave you money for the car. I paid you back that week. The extra- rent." She said slowly, words coming to a halt.

_What are we doing? We had everything all worked out. We're fighting about stuff that was already fixed. _

Neither voiced that thought.

"I'll be back by sunrise." Spike was resisting the urge to hit her back. You never hit the woman you love- only he'd had a century of good natured and less than good natured battles with his insane little princess. He and Slayer hadn't been too shy about it either.

_But she's not the Slayer. She's Buffy. She hates when I call her Slayer. So I called her it. I'm such a pillock sometimes._

"Spike-" Buffy called after him. _You can't leave. We had a fight. We have to fix it, or... or what? _

"Do you know what you want from me?" He blurted.

She did. Of course she did. But nothing came out.

"I thought so. It was goin' so bloody good, we'd be fools to think it'd stay that way forever."

"But- I- rest of my life." Buffy couldn't beg him to say, couldn't explain that this had all blown up in two minutes over nothing. Only string words together that made very little sense, though they meant so much._ I never said I expected it to be different, or perfect. I thought it would be the way it was, and that was enough. For the rest of my life. Nothing changed. _

_ Except that I fell in love with him. _

He heard her string of jumbled words, and they moved him. But they didn't change him. _I'm good as I can be for her, without losing all of myself. I have to go. I have to show her I'll be back._ "I'll be back by sunrise." He repeated more gently and left the room.

She sat on the bed and stared after him. The figure in the sheet visibly shuddered when the door slammed and locked behind him.

_What was that?_

* * *

He reappeared at daybreak, but she was gone. Not gone for good. Her note made that plain.

_I couldn't sleep. Sat up, watched TV._ _Heard on the news there's a bus strike. Again. Wasn't sure when you'd get back. Left early to walk. Can't lose this job. _

_ Be home a little late._

Spike sat in his chair. He dropped the bouquet of flowers from his bruised knuckles. It had felt good to hit things. He'd hit a lot. Bank ATMs. Vending machines. Lottery ticket dispensers. Anything with a few bucks inside. He kept his coat pulled high over his face and he'd mastered a neat trick of tossing his knife into the security camera wire from about ten feet back, severing it before he was in taping range. Relatively risk-free, pain-free, happy-meal-on-legs-free money. Lucrative this time, too. He should feel damn pleased with a good night's careful, cat-burglar-like work.

His wallet bulged, but his heart felt empty.

"It shouldn't. I used to be out every night. Every, single, bloody night." He angrily told the bouquet he'd taken from a florist's window, something else he'd decided to hit. "We never used to do all this couple stuff, the dinners and the dates. Walks to the soddin' park, like we're old marrieds. One night out in a year and she gets hysterical."

_She wasn't hysterical over you going. She was hysterical over you leaving without telling her. Why didn't you tell her?_

"Why should I have to tell her everything? I didn't want her to worry about the money!"

_Because you love her. You love her like you're "old marrieds". You were in these scrapes a thousand times with Drusilla, not knowing where the next bit of money or next nest would come from, and you'd hatch a plan, tell her all about it, and the two of you'd maim and massacre together to get it. _

_ You didn't tell Buffy because you were afraid she'd tell you not to._

"What right does she have to tell me not to!? Bloody fuck! Arguin' with myself and a soddin bunch of flowers! An' why the hell didn't I think to steal a vase while I was there?" He almost kicked the flowers or crushed their delicate heads with his heel. But he stopped himself, because he knew he'd just have to go out and buy more.

"Why the hell am I talkin' to myself?"

_Because she's the only one in your life you ever talk to honestly, and she's not here. _

"I didn't do anything wrong. Well. Not by the vampire's code anyway."

_Yes. Yes, you did. You hurt the person you love. Vampire or human, you were never keen on that. She didn't do anything wrong either._

He groaned. He'd have to go out and nick a vase later, right as the shadows fell, before she walked home. His heart stung. He'd have driven her, and picked her up, if there had been a transit strike and he'd known about it. If he'd been here. No good worrying about what things you missed.

"Let's be clear." Spike heaved himself to his feet, and tenderly stuck the roses in the sink before jamming the stopper in and letting it fill halfway with water. "You're not an 'I'm sorry, please forgive me' bouquet. You're an 'I'm sorry we ever had a stupid argument in the first place and you're the only one that really matters to me' bouquet. 'Cause I am bloody sorry about ever makin' her cry. No matter how I did it."

* * *

Buffy didn't walk home. For once, she accepted a ride from Pedro, who let her off a block from her apartment complex, as close as she felt comfortable letting him go. "If the buses are still out tomorrow, you want a lift?" The cook called out the window.

"No thanks!" Buffy waved and nodded as he drove off. With a nervous twitch in her stomach, she hurried to their building.

She didn't see the black blur running out the door facing the shady back parking lot, mumbling to himself about only having fifteen minutes to find a buggering shop with a buggering vase before she made it home after her long walk.

* * *

He wasn't there. And there was no note under hers. Buffy dropped the bags she'd been carrying. "He wouldn't leave though! He- oh my God, what if he got hurt? What if he's dead? What if- he- I have to be calm. I _am_ calm." Buffy lied to herself and sat down abruptly in the nearest chair, shaking and alone in the middle of the living room. _What if he changed his mind and doesn't want to come back?_

_Stop being completely whackjob. _

_ He's probably dead. It's daylight and he probably never even came home. His coat's not here. _Passions_ is over so he's not at Trish or Kim's, and I saw Ed by himself at the front desk and oh my God, he might be- Let's go back to being a complete whackjob._

_ I should go search for him. _

_ That's what I would do if Angel was hurt or missing. _A stab of old, bitter pain attacked her heart._ I sure did it often enough. _

_ But what if he's just taking time to cool off 'cause he's mad at me? The pain was replaced with rebellion. I didn't do anything wrong. I can't let him hurt people._

_ He said he wouldn't. _

_ Shit. I showed I didn't trust him. And I freaked. I freaked because he was sneaking away, sneaking out, leaving me alone in bed, and he's never ever done that. Why didn't he just tell me first?_

Buffy put her head in her hands._ Probably because I would've reacted like the paranoid jerk girl he saw._

_ Dammit. Everything got way messed up, way fast, and it's over nothing! Nothing! I don't care if he robs someone, I don't care if he runs cards for the mob, I don't care if he gets addicted to every soap opera ever made! I'd love him anyway..._

* * *

"Yeah, ducks, anyway, kinda need this in a hurry, see?" Spike chivvied the elderly woman working the customer service counter at the nearest grocery store. "Do you sell them or not?"

"R-ruuuudyyy?" Her voice warbled with age as she spoke into a crackling store intercom. "This young man wants a vase! Do we have vases?"

"You just asked him that three minutes ago." Spike hissed.

"I asked Leslie. She's in general supply, Rudy is in paper goods and seasonal."

"Bloody hell, it's a vase, it's not a paper good, an' it's flippin' September. Unless September is screw things up and buy flowers month, it's not seasonal!" Spike gripped the counter so hard part of it cracked. A March of Dimes collection stand fell off, popped open, and unleashed a flood of pennies.

"Oh no!" The clerk cried.

"Oh hell." Spike groaned and started scooping them up.

"If you can just wait a minute, Sir, Rudy's checking with the floral buyer. She might have a spare."

"Thank Christ."

"Oh, she's getting a shipment of potting soil off the truck. She should be back in five."

What Spike said next was not suitable for little old ladies, or the March of Dimes.

* * *

She tried every distraction trick she could think of to keep herself from running wildly out into the twilit night. _Maybe he'd just gotten stranded someplace and had to wait for night fall to get home. Yeah. That's reasonable._ She tried that train of thought while she went through all the change from her tips and stacked the coins in piles on the top of the shelf in the living room, next to their modest collection of videos and CDs. And their newly working phone.

She stared at the phone. She couldn't call him. She didn't know where he was. The didn't have any friends outside of this building. They didn't have anyone they even _trusted_ outside of this little apartment. Faces of her best friends, her Watcher, her mother ran through her head. _No one we trust as much, anyway._

"I'm going to try to recite the alphabet backwards if you don't come home in the next ten seconds." Buffy threatened Spike long-distance.

That didn't work. Her mind ran riot, and desperation mounted.

_Desperate times call for even more desperately stupid measures. _She seized the phone and dialed with a wince.

Buffy forced her voice to sound chipper. "Hi, Mom? Is now a good time for our weekly phone call?"

* * *

This is the equivalent of trying to distract yourself from a splinter in your finger by cutting you arm off_,_ Buffy realized five minutes later as her mother was yet again going through the "Please come home, why aren't you coming home, where did I fail as a parent?" guilt trip.

Maybe it was all the stress of missing Spike and worrying that made her blurt it out, a sudden snap where she was done trying to soothe and explain things, into something harsher and more honest.

"Mom! Stop beating yourself up, and stop beating me up with you! I just don't want to live in my old life any more- but it doesn't mean I want you cut out of mine completely! I just - I can't do it the way it used to be."

Joyce was momentarily stunned and silenced. "I just don't know if you're safe, if you're happy..." As Buffy stopped trying to be gentle, Joyce stopped trying to berate and demand, let herself speak honestly. She realized she didn't sound very strong now, but she didn't much care.

_Am I happy? Okay, this second- not so much. But _happy_?_

A thousand kisses and laughs, a dozen movies and pizzas ordered in, a handful of long, lazy walks and believing that heaven was here on earth- as long as he had his arm around her shoulders.

Buffy's voice was firm, if slightly constricted, "I'm happier and safer than I've been in my whole life." Joyce made a small, confused noise, but Buffy rolled over it, words gaining power and speed. "Mom, you won't believe this, but the normal life you wanted for me? I have it. Finally." _Or I will. As soon as Spike gets home and we fix this. We're going to fix the _hell _out of this. But for now..._ "I have a job, a _normal_ job. It's not glamorous and it's not making me rich, but I love it. I don't have to think, I don't have to fight, and sometimes I even like being there."

"That's good, but-"

"I'm not done! I have an apartment- a nice one this time, Mom. It's not fancy, but it's got furniture and appliances and- and I have a roommate I _love_." _It feels like the best feeling in the world to tell someone that. Even if it's not him._ She rambled on, excited to share, to let someone know what it was like. "I go for walks in the park and nothing creepy jumps out. I go to the movies and I go home, and I sleep. At night! I'm not out slaying. If I had to, I would. If something bad comes at me, I'll take it out." _Now Mom knows the world is full of scary things, and she knows I'm tired of fighting her. She never brings up slaying as a way to get me to come back, but I wonder if she wants to. Mom hated me doing that. But better than letting the world end. Maybe she's worried about being safe. I tried to keep her safe, but I didn't do a great job all the time, did I?_ Buffy's voice lost its confident edge, softened, reassuring. "If you needed me, I'd be there in a-"

They were taking turns that night, who was sharp, who was soft. Joyce's voice was bruisingly blunt. "I don't want that. I don't want that for you at all! Mr. Giles and the other girl-"

Buffy snapped, "She has a name, Mom."

"She's not _you_. She'll never be you." Joyce had a soft spot for the new girl, and for the rudderless Watcher, but that didn't intersect with what she felt for her daughter. "But they work well together, and the town is safe. It's not your job to worry about it anymore."

"I'll always worry about you. And love you. And-" Buffy choked up. "I love Giles too. I love him as much as Dad, Mom. I'm sorry if I'm not supposed to, but I do. I want him in my life, and I'll listen to him as my Watcher when you guys need me, but- but I'd rather have both of you in my life like- parents. Friends."

"Then why are you pushing us away?" Joyce demanded in a sudden, breaking wail.

"I'm not." Buffy was shocked. It hadn't clicked fully until just then, just those words. She wiped her eyes which had become full in the last few minutes, struck by the realization. "I was never pushing you away. I was saving myself."

Why had it seemed so selfish? Joyce blinked. Running away. Running away from life, responsibility, in shame, in grief, just- running. _Running away from _us_. I never thought she might be running _to_ someplace. To somewhere safe. Oh, Sweetie, if I could have taken you from slaying by running far and fast, I would have never stopped. _

Buffy was surprised to hear her mother raspily whisper, in a voice thick with so much she couldn't put into words "That's all I ever wanted. For you to be safe."

Buffy swallowed, fingers curling tightly around the phone. "We could both get our wish. Trust me? Give me- give me time to show you that I can be happy and be safe, and we'll still be a family, too."

"Buffy, that's a lot to ask."

"I know." Hope deflated.

"But I'll try, since that's the only option. Stubborn girl."

Hope surged back carried by an incredulous laugh and a gush of gratitude. "Thank you! I'm gonna make it work, Mom. I promise."

"I know you can." She always did the impossible.

"I have to go, Mom. I have some stuff I need to find. Stuff to fix."

Joyce paused. "Would it be too much to ask you to call twice this week?"

"Deal. Love you, Mom." She put down the phone with a swallowed sob of mixed emotions. _I gotta find Spike. I gotta make it work, it's already working, he just needs to be okay._

* * *

"It'll have to be okay without the bleedin' vase." Spike charged through the parking lot empty handed, eyes scanning the sky and the street. No signs of her. "Just in time. What do I say? Had all bloody day, how'd I not work that bit out?"

* * *

"I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna find him and I'll look at him and say- come home." She charged out the apartment door.

He charged in.

"Hey!"

"Oi!"

Both received a slam from the door.

Spike shouldered through the door, rubbing his chin. "Watch it."

"Where were you?" Buffy cried in relief.

"How'd you get here so fast?" He demanded.

"I've been home for twenty minutes! I got a ride to the next block. Are you just-"

"I was home all day. I went out- I went out to get something. Thought I'd beat you home." She stepped back and Spike shut the door softly behind him. "Hi."

"Hi."

He didn't know who moved first really. She was leaping up, he was bending down, and they interlocked, Spike catching her in his arms, lifting her just off the ground.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to freak at you-" Her fingers clutched the platinum strands of his hair.

"Didn't mean to make you cry." He kissed her all over tanned cheekbones.

"Oh, I hit your cheek. I didn't mean to." She nuzzled into it.

"Doesn't hurt now." He put her down on the ground and looked at her. "What the hell, huh?" He finally said.

Buffy raked her hands through her hair, a bewildered look on her face. "I know, right?"

"It was over nothin'. Look, Luv, I should've just said-"

"I don't care. No one got hurt, here or wherever you were. You said that and I believe you, and it's not like I- it's not like anything matters, except that things stay like this. Okay?" She stammered.

"I hate to let you down."

"You never let me down!" Buffy looked shocked. "Are you kidding? You're the reason I'm so happy."

Spike's eyes lit up. "Still?"

Buffy swallowed. "Still. Next time let me know before you leave? I have this weird thing about waking up alone in a bed that had two people in it the last time I checked."

Spike didn't say anything, only hugged her tight, harder than a human could stand, holding her possessively. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She gasped into his shoulder. "Human. Need... air." Spike released her. "Ooh, hey. I- um- I went out at lunch..." She knelt and scuffled around in a bag, producing several styrofoam containers.

"Meatloaf?" He leaned over her, affectionately slipping one arm around her waist.

"And potatoes." She lifted out another.

"You know how to feed a man."

"I know how to feed _you_." Buffy rummaged deeper, and then victoriously held up a bottle.

Spike blinked. "JD?"

"Your favorite."

"But your ID-"

"I didn't use it. I just took that." She flushed slightly, gesturing to the liquor. "I figured- sometimes... if it's really important..." Her eyes flickered from his. "I'm fast."

"You. Sit here." Spike turned, leaving her standing holding the bottle, disappearing into the kitchen.

Buffy was puzzled, but then she forced herself to speak lightheartedly. "Whoa. Getting glasses now? You're not going Hollywood on me, are -" Her voice died with a gasp.

Spike held out a bouquet of soaking roses, retrieved from the sink. "Here. This isn't 'cause I was wrong." He struggled to explain.

Buffy took the bunch of dripping flowers with an amazed smile. "I don't think you're wrong."

"I don't think you were either."

Buffy shoved the bottle into his hand. "It's not about being right or wrong. I think it's about being sorry it all went weird this morning."

"Amen." He held his bottle fondly. She held her roses close, then frowned slightly. "Um. Why are they wet? And do we have anything to put these in? Like a vase?"

She had no idea why he made a fist and cursed violently. Then studied the bottle appraisingly. "No. No soddin' vases. But gimme a couple minutes..."

Buffy looked at her flowers. "These actually might not need a vase..."

* * *

There were rose petals on the bed, and whiskey on his lips, burning her mouth when he claimed it. No lights. No sounds except frantic whispers and desperate moans. Two bodies covered in sweat and kisses and the remains of sweet, wet roses.

"I knew it was heaven." Buffy mumbled into his side at the end.

Spike took three of the intact roses and stuffed them into the now half empty bottle of spirit. "That's gonna either add a nancy rosewater finish- or kill your flowers."

"I don't really care." She pulled his elbow, and turned him back to her. "I don't really need flowers."

"I just need you." He said what she was thinking, because it was what he was thinking as well.

* * *

_Dawn..._

Buffy was in one of his shirts, that barely came to the end of her rear, carrying a mug carefully into the living room where he sat sprawled in his chair, shirtless, jeans undone, dark circles under his eyes, unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.

"If you spill- we have to rent a Rug Doctor." She passed him the mug of blood, and nibbled on a piece of toast as she scooted into his lap.

"I won't spill." He chuckled and made room for her in his lap. "You were right. This is heaven."

He sipped, she ate, they sank into the silence of togetherness, her head slowly sinking onto his shoulder. "I need a nap."

"You were an energetic little thing last night. And this morning." He teased, lipping her ear.

Buffy smiled and contemplatively played with his hand as it lay on her knee. "I'm happy we're together."

"Hey. Listen to me." Spike said sternly. "I want this as much as you. There's no end of this together. Rest of your life you said, an' I'm holdin' you to it."

Buffy's heart thudded happily against her ribs. _Maybe we expected it to be perfect. Well- it has been pretty close. That's more than enough for us. _ "Nothing is ever all the way perfect. Not overnight. Stuff takes time."

Spike nodded, musing. Then disagreed. "Nope."

"Huh?"

"Isn't this already perfect? Have everything we want, everything we need."

She conceded this. "I know. I thought it was pretty perfect until we wigged out and went off on each other."

It took Spike a moment to translate that from Buffy speak to English, then he answered. "Ah, we got silly over nothin'. We used to fight all the time. Enough to have a customer of the month plaque at the hardware store."

Buffy giggled. "Yeah, but that's before we were-"

_It is way too soon to say in love. Isn't it? _

_ Even if we both know we are._

Silence lost some of its comfort.

"Before we were more than just roommates?" Spike supplied.

"Yeah. Before that." She sank further into his lap and held her breath as their heads aligned, lips brushed. "Before this."

* * *

_To be concluded..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Everything and More**

**By Sweetprincipale**

_ Being happy together in a modest, minimum wage life was was everything they wanted. Being able to find real love again was more than they had hoped. A short sequel to _Living Conditions_. Takes place between chapter fifteen, when Spike and Buffy reunite, and the epilogue that shows them living their simple, happily ever after, several years later. _

_Author's Note: Credit to Rise Against and their beautiful "Swing Life Away", as I have used some of their lyrics in this chapter. I suggest listening to it as background music, but that's just me._

_Dedicated to ginar369, mike13z50,Jewel74, Skeezixx, Cavemenftw, omslagspapper, Lyzzybelle, arlenedemalk, jackiemack916, alexiarrose, and Rosalea12._

_**Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine. **_

**Part IV**

_Twelve weeks later..._

"I don't understand. It's still seventy. Now why are you wearin' long sleeves and lookin' for sweaters?" Spike held hands with her loosely, arms swinging between them.

"Because I grew up in California. Eighty is nice. Seventy means it's getting a little chilly. And if we're going to be out half the night I want long sleeves." Buffy explained with a complacent grin.

"Out half the night? Thought we were just gonna walk to that grocery on the other side of the park?"

"That's to get the pineapple smoothie. Then I need new sneakers. And a new sweater would be nice."

"Might as well pick up a pizza."

"Nope."

"No? Chinese?"

"I-" Buffy announced with a dramatic pause, "am going to learn to cook. Pedro leant me his mom's cookbook."

Spike paled even beyond his dead white, becoming almost clear. "Luv, you do remember I'm still flammable, yeah?"

Buffy disengaged her hand long enough to take a playful swing at his ribs. "You act like I'm going to burn everything."

"Leftovers." Spike coughed into his now freed fist.

Buffy blushed. "You forget to take the food out of the styrofoam container one teensy little time and-"

"Ed almost evicted us you know!"

Buffy scoffed. "Ed loves us and you know it."

Spike smiled cockily. "Well, what's not to love?"

_Plenty. But nothing ever comes to mind... _Buffy made no answer.

When she felt silent, he covered hastily. "Fire extinguishers look like fun in the movies, but all they leave is a soddin' big powdery mess."

"I still don't think we should have had to pay for the replacement. Those ovens are twenty years old. It could have been it's fault, not mine."

"That only works as an excuse when you don't come to the door holding a trash bag full of molten black containers sayin', 'I'm so sorry Ed, it was all my fault!'" Spike concluded in a high-pitched, mockery of her voice. He took another elbow to the ribs. "You're always beatin' up on me..." He sighed.

"I think you kind of like it." Buffy suddenly leaned into him with a giggle and kissed a spot on his neck, the highest place she could reach while still walking.

"Mmm. Think you know me pretty well." They rounded the corner and came upon a half-empty park, only older teens out as the sun set, skating, fighting, sneaking illicit smokes.

"After three months I think I-"

"What do you mean three months? I'm not erasin' the end of last year."

"No, but that was different." Buffy pointed out.

He chewed a mouthful of words before mumbling, "Not that bloody different to me," and hastily shoved a cigarette in his mouth.

Buffy's turn to mull over words. _Does that mean he loved me _before_? Or that he doesn't love me _now_?_

She looked at him. Nervously sneaking a look at her. With guarded eyes under a mask of worry-free sneers at the passing cars and their faulty mufflers.

_I know him pretty well. It's not really hard to figure out. _

_ It's just hard to push for one more gift, when you feel like you have everything._

She stopped them halfway across the park, heading to one of the spray paint covered benches they often frequented. "I don't want a smoothie right now. Too cold."

"That's a laugh." Spike spotted the ice cream truck turning across from the youth center, where kids were dancing on the asphalt, radios blaring. "C'mon, Buffy, want your usual?"

"Sure." Buffy watched him flag down the truck with a smile. S_ee, that's love. Love is when they know your usual at the ice cream truck- and they'll go get it for you- even if it means standing in line with all those kids... Oh geez, Spike, no snarling! _

He trotted back to her in a minute, holding out her treat, and slid into the seat beside her. "Now it's perfect." He chuckled.

"Well, duh. You're here." She grinned into her cone.

_That's love. When they just want you. And it's perfect as long as you're there. _

She ate, he chattered on, both of them staring at the purple and orange streaked sky. The sun was gone, the moon was not yet up, kind of in between day and night.

_Kind of like us. Kind of in between._

* * *

_Am I loud and clear, or am I breaking up?_

_Am I still your charm, or am I just bad luck?_

_Are we getting closer, or are we just getting more lost?_

* * *

"Did you ever think we'd end up together? Y' know. Like this?" Spike finally asked feigning the utmost disinterest.

Buffy shook her head almost instantly, and his heart plummeted. "Ha. No. No way." Buffy told the last of her ice cream cone.

"Oh. Nifty turn of events then." Spike said with barely contained harshness, stung and shocked. _Guess I was wrong. Thought it was heaven. Thought we both felt like this was. Guess we're still just "convenient". _

She didn't even catch the tone, wrapped in her own incredulousness. "You saw me last year." Buffy murmured. "I couldn't even imagine a good shift at work, let alone a good life. Then when we left LA... 'cause we had to know, didn't we?" She hurried on past that terribly bittersweet moment in time, deciding to go back and see if they were just hiding from life, or was there really a different sort of life for them. "I figured our old lives would work out. At least yours. I never figured..." She didn't see hope burst back into his eyes, too busy staring at thing in her own mind.

_I never figured we could be so happy- and still be in love. Love had always hurt before. He's had so much more to lose. How did I get to be enough for him?_

"You an' I are the masters of the fortunate coincidence, Sweetheart. Or jus' plain survivors."

"Maybe the first time." Buffy nodded jerkily.

* * *

_I'll show you mine, if you show me yours first_

"No one could say it's a coincidence now. Too much bloody hard work."

Buffy didn't think it felt like work at all. Just like life. "Waitressing isn't exactly a cushy job, but-"

"Oh not that, Baby." He took her hand suddenly. "Tryin' to make sure you never, ever regret chuckin' all you had- for someone like me."

* * *

_Let's compare scars, I'll tell you whose is worse_

Buffy stared, amazed. "Me? What about- about all that 'vampire bad guy nightlife, king of the undead' stuff you loved?" She demanded.

He snorted. "Ms. Saving the World Prom Queen, more like. Not exactly chock full of good times and glory over here."

"First- do not ever talk to me about the horror that was my prom. Second- saving the world _once_ should guarantee you an instant comfy retirement package in Boca Raton. Saving the world three or more times? I should have a mansion made out of chocolate and a swimming pool filled with shopping money."

"Yeah. You should. But we don't. We don't have any of that stuff."

"I don't _want _any of that stuff. If I can just have you and me."

* * *

_Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words_

"It was so good. And so bad." Buffy leaned her head on his shoulder, looking into the startling blue eyes, still standing out as the dusk deepened.

"This isn't anything special." _Be sure. Please be sure, 'cause I'll give you everything, if you'll give me everything you've got into the bargain. I can't throw myself away again, even if you're worth it. _

"I'm not anything special. Not anymore. I'm a waitress."

"You're always special." He grunted automatically. "I'm not exactly setting out the red carpets and caviar. I guess we could, if you wanted. But you wouldn't like how I get that life, so I wouldn't make that life for you. For us."

_How come he's so stupid sometimes? _"You act like I need some fancy life."

"You act like I need someone different." Spike countered sharply. "When're you going to get it through your thick, albeit pretty, little skull that I don't want anything but you, and that I want you to be happy with me, and never once regret that you gave up everything for me?"

"When you realize the same things, only switch it around to read I never want you to be the one regretting, or unhappy, 'cause I know this is way different for both of us- but especially you!"

"Screw different as long as you'll stay!"

"I'll stay forever! I know what forever really looks like now! It's not fancy, it's hard, and it's long, but if you- if you love someone it's worth it!"

* * *

_We live on front porches and swing life away,_

_We get by just fine here on minimum wage_

_If love is a labor I'll slave till the end,_

_I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand_

* * *

"What did you say?" Spike rocked off the bench with a sudden, happy lunge, spinning around to get in front of her, knees on the gritty grass, hands grabbing hers.

"If you love someone." She barely managed to say.

"You love someone?" His iron bones grated on hers, pressing so hard his white knuckles stood out under his skin.

"I love _you_."

The ground dropped away from under him, under her, and a passing car honked at the sight of a couple kissing fervently against the backdrop of a slowly rising moon.

"Spike! Spike." She laughed breathlessly. "Put me down."

"No! The woman I love says she loves me too. I'm gonna hold you as long as I damn well want. An' you have to let me. 'Cause you love me."

Buffy hugged him around the neck, suddenly not caring if it earned stares. She waved at the next car honking.

"That was so easy." She gasped against his ear.

"Maybe for you!" Spike gently released her, a stunned smile on his face. "If I had a beatin' heart, it'd be bustin' out of my chest." He paused, tilted his ear to her torso. "Like yours."

"I meant once I said it- once you said it back- it was so easy."

* * *

_I've been here so long, I think that it's time to move_

_The winter's so cold, summer's over too soon_

* * *

"Why were you so scared? _I_ was the one who tracked you down, offered us another shot in this this place." Spike lead her through the park, back to the sidewalk, in a hazy, happy world made of star light and anti-gravity. His feet seemed unable to fully connect to the earth. He'd been the cautious one. It had paid off. _She loves me_. The ground seemed to disappear again.

"Do you know what it's like to have a guy come back from hell for you- but say he can't take you to the prom? To have him leave so you can have a 'normal' life?"

"Uh. No." Spike had to claim ignorance on that one.

"It makes you scared to fall in love again. Scared to get your heart broken- even if you think to yourself, "I moved on once. I could do it again'. Without you around, no. No way. I don't think I could have."

"You could have. Your'e a warrior." Spike argued.

"But I don't want to be! I want to be a normal girl. You helped me get that life back. The 'normal life' that's supposed to be so great. Great enough to trade love for."

"Is it?" _Haven't we just gone through this?_

_Doesn't he get it?_ "If you're around- yeah." She sighed. "I'd choose love over a normal life. That was my deal. So why would I be lucky enough to get the life I want- and fall in love again?"

He shook his head. When they got back together that night, a few boxes and bags, speeding along a dark highway into LA- he hadn't been sure he was in love with her. Just that with her, he was happy, and they had to get together again, get that life back again, find happiness again. _You could be happy without love. You could be in love, without bein' happy. _He and Dru, her and Forehead- they could bloody well write the instruction manual for that.

"You're right. We're lucky." He laced his arm around her waist, and her hips naturally seemed to make a molded set with his own, strolling together past the place where music never seemed to stop bellowing, and the city kept changing around two figures stuck in place, afraid to take a last leap. "I know what you mean. Bein' happy doesn't equal love. not when you've been trained to think it has to be something tragic."

Something tragic. Yes, her and Angel. "You and Drusilla- weren't you happy most of the time?" She dared to ask.

"Not happy like this." He confessed.

"But-"

"Buffy." Spike paused and stared at her with a sad sort of smile. "When things were good, they were amazing. But I never stopped worrying about when it would go away. When she'd go away." He opened his mouth once, shut it, licked his lips and tried again. "You said, that night- you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. What sort of selfish bastard would I be to think I could get your whole life- an' your heart with it?"

* * *

_But we've had some times, I wouldn't trade for the world_

_We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go_

* * *

"It was a two for one deal. Heart. Life." She'd already known she was falling in love, even before he showed up in town. "It's hard to let some of the old stuff go, I knew it would be. Not all of it was bad. Some of it was pretty awesome." Buffy remembered Willow's laugh and Xander's smile, Giles' awed look when she did something he never expected. _I'm not giving that up. Just having less of it. Everyone still stays in touch- even if it's less. Even if it's confusing. We're all moving on- but we'll always know how to find each other._

"Changing what you did, what you'd do again if you had the chance..." He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably as they passed another couple, reeking of hormone-rich blood, making his fangs fairly twitch through his gums. But he could give up feeding on humans. Asking a man to live on bagged blood was actually the simplest and easiest request anyone had asked of him. A thousand times easier than forgiving a dozen betrayals. For finding her still in someone else's bed. For simply not finding her at all, for nights of tears and rage and fear that you'd never see her again. Rip his fangs out of his skull, it'd be less painful.

"You know what though?" He smiled genuinely. "I really don't mind. Honest."

"I don't either!" Buffy's arm was through his, and tugging pleadingly. "I'm done being scared and I'm done being worried- if you're-"

"Done as well, Pet." He hastily answered.

"Then I'm done. I'm ready to be happy. In love with you. At home with you."

"Me, too."

* * *

_We live on front porches and swing life away,_

_We get by just fine here on minimum wage_

* * *

They bought her a sweater and sneakers. They picked up chicken and salt and pepper- "'Cause you can't go wrong with that when you're trying to cook." Spike insisted.

"Do you _know_ how to cook, Mr. Can't Go Wrong?"

"Oh. Look." He left the spice area abruptly without answering. "Hot sauce."

* * *

_If love is a labor I'll slave till the end_

"For crap sakes..." Spike pushed the up button to no avail. "Out. Again!"

"I'll call Ed when we get upstairs."

"He might as well put a rope ladder in the damn shaft." Spike growled, and they trudged up the stairs.

She put the clothes away, he took care of the food, and they caught each other's eyes in passing. Slow smiles spread across faces.

"Go on. What's on your mind?" Spike tempted.

Buffy tempted back, slowly slipping her hands across her hips as she leaned against their bedroom door frame. "Oh. Y'know. Boring stuff. Making rent. Making dinner. Making love..."

"I say we focus on one thing at a time." He prowled up to her, and kissed her soft lips, then her soft cheeks, walking her back slowly, swaying with her as if to some silent tango only they could hear.

"We never- said it. When we were in bed. Before." Buffy bit his lower lip then his earlobe, dragging her teeth down his smooth skin in a sudden wave of ecstasy when his hands met her skin.

"I've wanted to. Wanted to every time, even back before you left." They'd fallen onto their untidy bed, half dressed, him on top.

"Now we can."

"I dare you."

"I dare you more."

He chuckled and rolled them across the bed a few times, lazily, passionately lunging, listening for three whispered words underneath laughing kisses. Finally he pinned her, hands layered across hers, chin to chin, waiting.

_I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand...until you hold my hand_

"It's okay. I got you." He squeezed his hands around hers, and swallowed, throat slowly unlocking, forming words. But his girl beat him to it.

"I'm in love with you." She caught a glint in his eye, watched lips move, echoing her, and remembered what it felt like to be too happy to speak. "Shhh. You can tell me later. You can tell me forever. We can say it forever." Buffy comforted, slightly choked up herself.

"You're my everything, you know that?" He finally managed to rasp, blinking hard.

"I know."

"Love you."

Buffy wrapped her arms around his neck and held onto him tightly, heart thudding as it overflowed. "You're my everything, too."

* * *

They were, for the rest of their lives, each other's everything, and even more. No one could say they lived a fairytale existence, but they actually did live happily ever after.


End file.
